The Heavenly Protectress

A Sermon on the Day of the Protection of the Most Holy Theotokos

The Virgin stands in the church today and, together with the choirs of the saints, prays to God for us invisibly (the kontakion of the feast)

From the beginning of the tenth century—in the year 910 after Christ, under the Greek emperor Leo the Wise and Patriarch Terasius—the Mother of God once appeared to the eyes of chosen men in the Blachernae church of Constantinople, during the celebration of the all-night vigil, together with the choirs of Angels and saints. Covering the people present with her precious omophorion, she prayed to her Son and God for their salvation from enemies who threatened the capital with destruction, and the people with slavery and death. Through the intercession of the heavenly Protectress the enemy was driven away, and the city was saved. In memory of the merciful protection of the Mother of the Lord over our own fatherland as well, the Orthodox Russian Church, from the most ancient times, established the yearly solemn commemoration of the Protection of the Mother of God.

The Russian kingdom has existed for more than a thousand years now, and it would be hard to enumerate how many times the heavenly Protectress has shielded it from calamities through her prayerful intercession with the Lord of Hosts. But while protecting the fatherland and the people as a whole, she also extends her sovereign protection over cities and villages, and over individual persons. Every Orthodox Christian knows this, for examples of her protection and deliverance fill the cities and villages, and the lives of very many devout Christians. In honor of the feast, and for your edification and my own, let us speak together, brethren, about how necessary for us is the prayerful intercession of the Mother of God on our behalf.

Brethren, we are far, very far from understanding how necessary for us are the prayers of the Most Pure Mother of the Lord; and in order to see this necessity, one would need an eye or a mind far purer and brighter than ours. Only our most tender mother, the holy Church, pure in her understanding, sees in all the world how necessary for us is Her intercession with God on our behalf; and therefore every time she begins to pray with us to God, she unfailingly calls upon Her, chosen from among women, higher than all creatures in heaven and on earth, and through Her intercession asks either to grant us some good or to deliver us from some misfortune, so that it is difficult to find a prayer that does not contain the name of the Most Pure Mother of God. And rightly so! Being the Mother of the Word of God, and consequently standing closer than all others to the throne of the Godhead, She naturally has great power to move the Master to mercy or to appease Him. We are sinful and unclean, while She is Most Pure; how could Her prayers fail to obtain mercy for us unclean ones, if only we desire to be purified and do not again add sins to sins? We are proud amid our uncleannesses, while She is so humble amid all Her virtues, amid all Her greatness; looking upon Her humble prayers, how could we proud and stiff-necked ones not be shown mercy, if we humble ourselves before God and before Her! The Mother of God is truly like an unshakable wall between God and men; She turns aside the greater part of the thunderbolts of the heavenly justice that stands ready to punish ungrateful sinners. Only behind such a wall are we often safe, while we suppose that our safety is the result of the ordinary order of things. But let us enter more closely into the condition of man on earth, in order to see more clearly how necessary for him is the intercessory prayer of the Mother of God.

From the time when man lost his innocence, blessedness, and immortality, down to the present day he presents a terrifying picture of the miseries that torment him, inward and outward, of soul and of body, so that no one can fail to see that some heavy yoke lies on all the sons of Adam, from the day of their going forth from the womb of their mother to the day of their burial in the mother of all[1], that is, into the earth. Having long ago lost his blessed state, man now believes only faintly in the heavenly blessedness promised him, and refuses to understand that the present life is not life in the true sense of the word, because it is nothing more than preparation for life in heaven—and therefore he gives himself full license here, often making his life a spectacle of unruly passions; he plays with it as with a toy, never curious to learn what will become of it when it breaks; in general he does not use it as even the sound common sense of every person prescribes, which says that the life of a rational being must without fail have a rational, spiritual purpose. On the other hand, living for the most part amid sicknesses, sorrows, troubles, and exhausting cares that are of no use to the soul, he is often crushed beneath their burden, finding neither relief nor consolation. How necessary, and how consoling, in such a pitiable condition, it would be to find in heaven a person who cherished for us the most sincere and tender love, who had great power with God, and whose intercession would aid us, at our prayer, through the illumination of our mind by their heavenly light, in tearing ourselves away little by little from the earth; who would guide us toward salvation, forestall scandals and temptations, or help us overcome them, and would soften the cruelty of our sorrows, sicknesses, and other misfortunes.

Such a radiant person Christians do have—the Mother of God. Chosen above all the women of the world, wherever and whenever they may have lived, She naturally sympathizes with people as one who shares their nature and passions, and she sympathizes more not only than any person taken individually, but more than all people together, because no human heart is capable of loving all people with such a love as that with which the Mother of God loves us. Only the purest of hearts can love all people, and of all human beings no one had a heart purer than Mary’s. Sometimes we love a certain unfortunate person, yet cannot help him; to the sickness of compassion there is then added a new painful feeling: the impossibility of helping the one who suffers. With the Mother of God this cannot be. If She wishes to help the wretched person who turns with living faith to her intercession, then she cannot fail to help him. As the Mother of the almighty Son and God, She is, in a certain sense, almighty Herself. God has appointed to have mercy on us for her prayers infinitely more than for the prayers of all the other saints, on account of the very height of her ministration to the Mystery of redemption, and therefore He attends to every prayer of His all-pure Mother, since every prayer of hers is holy and pleasing to Him.

So then, do you wish to save your souls from eternal perdition, to be freed from slavery to the passions, to bear the illnesses, sorrows, and calamities of life with patience and lightness of heart? Then turn, all of you, brethren, with prayer to the Mother of God; ask for her lofty assistance, for her consolations; ask fervently, unceasingly, as if you saw her before your very eyes in her divine glory—and you will surely receive her help; she will surely overshadow you with her protection. You will see this yourselves, feel it, touch it; it will be so easy for you, so peaceful, so joyful. But if you do not receive it, blame yourselves; it means you prayed insincerely, unworthily. Who, brethren, is more able to intercede for us, who more able to hear our prayers, than the Mother of God? Though she is now in heaven, in all her heavenly glory, still she is from us, from our sinful earth; she lived here as we do, and also endured many griefs; how could she fail to hear us from there, fail to protect her own? Only, brethren, we must never forget that she is the All-Holy, and she does not love lawlessness. Therefore, as we ask in our prayers for her intercession with God on our behalf, let us strive to be far from every sin, as from a defilement that turns away from us both the eyes and the ears of the heavenly Protectress and draws down upon us the wrath of heaven.

Let us all, then, with a pure heart flee to her sovereign protection in our misfortunes, in our sorrows and illnesses, and place in her an unfailing hope. Let us, amid the calamities of life, prepare for that place where there are no calamities at all, where there is eternal joy and eternal peace; and it will be pleasing to the Queen of Heaven to save and shelter us from troubles and to guide us to the haven of heaven, eternally tranquil. Shelter us, O Lady, with your precious protection, and deliver us from every evil, entreating your Son, Christ our God, to save our souls. Amen.